Bodog Refusing to Pay Winning Bettor

Bodog is refusing to pay out a bettor who won big on the Olympics, according to a poster at Sportsbook Review.

I have had a successful few weeks betting on Olympic hockey. I bet fairly large amounts and have won about $20k on Bodog over the course of the Olympics.

I requested a cashout from Bodog the other day, and as they were reviewing the cashout, they decided to cancel almost all of my winning parlay bets while leaving many losing bets active.

Bodog is claiming the bettor wagered on correlated parlays, giving them the right to void the winning wagers more than a week after those bets were graded winners.

Dear Mr. P,

This is just a quick note from the Sports team letting you know that your wagers xxxxxxxx, yyyyyyyyyy, etc, on Winter Olympics – Hockey In Play have been settled as ‘No Action’ because of a system error allowing you to make a parlay with co-related lines on a single event. In these situations, if one leg wins it is considered likely that the other will also win. Because of this likelihood, correlated lines cannot be included together in a parlay.

If there’s anything else we can help you with, please let us know.Best regards,Sports Customer Service

Bodog didn’t cancel all the correlated parlays, just the losing ones. They initially offered parlays on alternate spreads and totals, but took those down after the first few days of Olympic action.

“At this point they did not cancel any of my past bets, even though they had clearly realized what they considered a mistake,” the gambler said. “They also allowed further parlaying of the spread and total on the primary lines. I thought this was a very clear indication that they were happy taking this kind of action and it was not a system error.”

Bodog is blaming a software issue for allowing these correlated parlays. This is a common practice when sportsbooks get caught with their pants down. In 2009, Wager Web initially refused to pay a bettor over $20,000 in winnings when they determined the player had used correlated parlays to rack up the profits. “A software glitch” allowed these parlays to be made, said Wager Web. Eventually, Wager Web paid out.

Bodog is in the same situation as Wager Web was in 2009. Bodog’s software can be set up to disallow these type of parlays. They disallowed similar parlays using alternate lines in the Olympics, but allowed spread/total parlays using standard lines. They refused to offer spread/total parlays in selected college football games, but allowed those type of parlays in others. Bodog has a opportunity to reject these parlays if they don’t want them, just like they would do in an Alabama football game where the total is 52 and point spread is 48. It is Bodog’s decision to allow these parlays. Software has no role to play in this.

A honest book will pay out on its mistakes. The term “take the bet, pay the bet” motto is not just a cliche. It is how they do business. Bodog clearly doesn’t follow that principle. Given the choice between honoring a wager made and saving some money, they chose to save some money.